Hallelujah! Benedictine Brewery opens, welcomes guests to the St. Michael Taproom

Seven years ago, a friend offered Father Martin Grassel and the Mount Angel Abbey some brewing equipment. He said no, thank you. 

He had never brewed beer, and in fact, hadn't much enjoyed drinking beer until he tasted a Black Butte Porter from Deschutes, but the idea of brewing needled him, the same way that the idea of becoming a priest had back when he was still an engineer. 

"That idea stuck in my mind, " said Grassel, "I couldn't stop thinking about it." 

He called her back to say that he had changed his mind. 

More:6 new downtown businesses greet Mt. Angel Oktoberfest visitors

This week, Grassel, now Head Brewer, and the rest of the monks at Mount Angel welcome guests to visit Saint Michael's Taproom at the now open Benedictine Brewery. 

Quality & Simplicity 

Mount Angel Abbey was founded in 1882 by Benedictine monks from the Abbey of Engelberg in Switzerland. Still today, the Benedictine monks in Mount Angel live a life governed by prayer and work as prescribed by their sixth-century founder, St. Benedict of Nursia.

When they began the conversation of building a brewery at the Abbey the first thought was to re-purpose an existing structure. None were the right fit and any of them would have posed a problem when it came to parking. 

"Where would you put parking on the hilltop? It's on a hilltop!" said Grassel. 

Instead, they chose a site for a new building in a different area of the 300-acre parcel, separate from the rest of the buildings. A good fit, Grassel said, because "it insulates the activity at the brewery slightly from the monastery itself." 

On November 11, 2017– the Feast Day of Saint Martin–the brewery welcomed more than 100 community volunteers for a  brewery-raising.

Henry Fitzgibbon and New Energy Works designed the timber frame building, to be built from Douglas Fir harvested from the Abbey's tree farm and milled in Corvallis.

"By the end of the day, there was this beautiful frame standing here."

The interior of the building is rustic yet industrial, says Grassel, meant to reflect the monastic values of quality and simplicity." A space to reflect nature and encourage contemplation. 

The walls are the same white as the monastery. The concrete floor is smooth and plain. The wooden bar, tables, and benches are simple but beautiful and sturdy.

Historical photos from the monastery archives hang on one wall. On another, a wooden relief carving of St. Michael.

The entire room still smells of the fir beams and the windows frame recently-harvested hop bines.  

Brothers Brewing

Before he was Benedictine's Head Brewer, Father Martin Grassel worked elsewhere in the Abbey. When he first came to Mount Angel as a seminarian in 1995 he worked at the bookstore, then acted at the abbot's secretary, then as a deacon. 

More:Benedictine Brewery and St. Michael Taproom to open this month

He then went to Rome for two years to get a degree in theology so he could teach. Though he didn't know it at the time, his time in Italy would come to have a direct impact on his style as a brewer. 

There, he recalls, "the food is so wonderful because it's so simple. You go get a piece of pizza, a Margherita pizza, and it's so flavorful ... the sauce, the cheese, the buffalo mozzarella."

He views the tendency of American breweries to load beers up with fruit, chilies, and other additions as a gimmick.

Instead of rushing to offer a dozen different variations, his plan at Benedictine is that he and Assistant Brewer Father Jacob Stronach, "will master basic beers and do them with quality, the traditional styles ... to do things with simplicity, but with finesse."

"The American way is to make it to be bigger than the next guy's, it doesn't have to be good, it just has to be big. I don't want that for us. I want the mastery, the goodness that comes from simplicity."

Benedictine Brewery will use of hops grown on Mount Angel Abbey grounds and water drawn from its well to brew Belgian-style beers, some with what he calls, "the Northwest hop twist." To start they will offer a modest selection including Black Habit, St. Benedict Farmhouse Ale, Tyrant Cascadian Dark Ale, and a lighter brew, St. Michael's Helles Lager.

They will craft these brews in stages, brewing one day and cleaning the next, fitting the work of brewing into their monastic schedule of prayer and their other obligations. 

"We like to fit our work between the gaps, but you can't brew a batch of beer in three hours."

This means that Benedictine will brew at a slightly different rhythm from other small breweries, but Grassel views that as essential. 

"That's part of the authenticity of the operation. We are monks brewing beer in Oregon, not monks hiring people to brew beer. Why would people come to a monastic brewery if it's a charade? If the beer is not made by monks it's not real, it's like Disneyland. We want to be real."  

With its launch, the Mount Angel brewery joins a tradition of monastic brewing that stretches back centuries and across oceans. 

The beers reflected by this tradition include Chimay, from the monks of Scourmont Abbey in Hainaut, Belgium and La Trappe from the Koningshoeven Brewery of Koningshoeven Abbey in the Netherlands. 

The Benedictine Brewery will represent only the third brewery operated by monks in the United States. Beers from Spencer Brewery in Spencer, MA, are brewed by Trappist monks at St. Joseph's Abbey. Benedictine monks from the Desert Benedictine Monastery in Albuquerque, NM founded Abbey Brewing Company.

Like these other monastic breweries, the Benedictine Brewery will be a for-profit enterprise on the Abbey grounds.

Welcoming the Guest

For Benedictines, hospitality is a feature of monastic life. 

"It's right in the holy rule, the rule of Benedict," Grassel said, "welcome everyone as Christ. You welcome them, you serve them, you respect them...that's the principle." 

The monks hope that by including a taproom at the brewery and by choosing not to distribute their beers offsite, the brewery will act as an invitation to the community of Mount Angel to visit and engage with the monastery. 

"Supporting them, meeting them, and having a new level of rapport is important to us."

He recognizes that, for many, offering something besides beer is key in that interaction. 

"We want to welcome people and food is an important part of that, but we don't want to be a restaurant...we just want to make beer." 

Though the Saint Michael Taproom won't be a full-service restaurant, the monks plan to offer a short menu. The brewery's design, which features a garage-style door, includes a space that could accommodate a food truck and they're working with food producers in Mount Angel, including the Glockenspiel and the Mount Angel Sausage Company on a simple menu. 

"We want the local community to prosper," said Grassel," it doesn't even have a grocery store. It should." 

If you go 

What: Grand Opening of the St. Michael Taproom at the Benedictine Brewery 

When: Saturday and Sunday, September 22 and 23, 2018 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Hours (after grand opening): Wednesday and Thursday 2 to 7 p.m.; 
Friday and Saturday 1 to 8 p.m.; Sunday - 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Closed Monday and Tuesday

Location: 400 Humpert Lane NE, Mt. Angel 

Information: mountangelabbey.org and  Benedictine Brewery on Facebook facebook.com/BenedictineBrewery/ 

Emily Teel is the Food & Drink Editor at the Statesman Journal. Contact her at eteel@statesmanjournal.com, Facebook, or Twitter. See what she's cooking and where she's eating this week on Instagram: @emily_teel